Day 9 of 30: #verselove with Jennifer Jacobson

Jennifer Jacobson is the author of award-winning children’s books including Small as an Elephant(IRA Young Adult’s Choice, Parents’ Choice Gold Award), Paper Things (ILA Social Justice Award, NTCE Charlotte Huck Honorable Mention)and The Dollar Kids illustrated by Ryan Andrews (ABA IndieNext List and Bank Street Best Book of the Year).  She is also a former teacher, a literacy consultant, a writing coach and the author of No More, “How Long Does It Have to Be?”: Fostering Independent Writers in Grades 3-8.

Inspiration

As a writer of fiction, I’ve long believed in the power of what Pam Houston calls glimmers or what Lynda Berry calls aliveness: objects or snatches of memory that seem to have more staying power . . . perhaps an electrical charge.

Poet, Marie Howe, asks her students to write down ten observations of the actual world. She doesn’t want observations embellished with meaning, but pure descriptions that lead the mind to new ways of seeing. A keyhole if you will. This is harder than it seems.

I chose Howe’s poem “What the Living Do” as a mentor text, and a poster, hanging in the window of my local bank, as my glimmer.

https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do

Process

Slow (the Pam Houston way): Capture glimmers as you go about your daily life. Explore one or try combining two and see how they play off of one another.

Faster (the Marie Howe way): Write down ten observations of the actual world. Just describe. What do one or more of these observations spark? Go there.

Fastest (the Lynda Barry way): Write ten nouns on ten slips of paper. Turn one over. That’s your word. Jot down ten memories that word elicits. Write a poem about the memory that feels most alive. (Watch the video for a more complete lesson.)

Alternative: Revisit epistolary poetry. Write a poetic letter (as Marie Howe and I did) to someone who may never read it.

I Thought I Saw You by Jennifer Jacobson

Mom, I thought I saw your picture
on a poster.
You were younger and wearing your public smile.
It was my favorite.

I don’t recall you beaming at me in that way:
drawing others to you. Like bees to nectar.
I try. Really, I do. But mostly I conjure
a knowing smirk.

“Come now,” it seemed to say:
challenging my honesty,
my authenticity.
Perhaps that’s fair.

I created a false self,
a false mother (all butterflies),
a false life?
I was afraid to look too closely
at the real one.

Even now, staring at this poster of an imposter,
I want to feel like a girl who’s lost her mama.
Instead, I’m back in my designated spot
beside you
on the faux leather couch.

You curled up,
sipping your drink on the rocks.
Me, recoiling, repelled by the sourness
of the souls of your feet.

Or early mornings, while you stood over me, hairbrush in hand,
yanking my ponytail tight.
I held my breath to avoid inhaling
the perspired odor of your last cigarette.

Years later, I still held my breath,
as I stood by your bed.
Your last words to me:
“Where are your brothers?”

Write